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Showing posts from March 3, 2008

Onions and the Blues

A beautiful use of a only moderately observed hour and a cast iron pan: caramelized onions . Over pasta, on a pizza, on salad, over cheese or straight from the pan. It takes as much time to do 10 onions as it takes to make 2 so you might as well break out both skillets and the safety goggles. Hella sweet and savory at the same time, it's flavor money in the bank, Baby. Or the 'fridge. (Yes, goggles. And if you have a mandoline or v-slicer, even better.) Preheat skillet (standard, not non-stick) on medium heat, no oil. Thinly slice a whole heap of onions (red, sweets, standard yellah), about 4 cups. Pile as many into a skillet as you can and still get the lid on. Dump onions in skillet. Clap on lid. Stir every five minutes for a total of 20 minutes when the onions have given up their juice and start looking drier and begin to stick. Uncover. Douse with 4 T. olive oil. Stir and don't go too far away. Give the onions a stir every five minutes or so until onions collapse and t...

Two Ladies and a Puppy

Oh, Darlings: I did not intend to give the impression that I was adopting the adorable squishy puppy in the previous post; rather my office mate Luis was lucky enough to be her new daddy. Lucky dog, lucky Luis. She'll be dropping by again tomorrow morning. (Yes, we gave the original owners opportunity to claim her, but they failed to do so.) Lady I (the mystery) While having coffee Saturday morning in the pretentious and overblown downtown in my hometown of Pretentiousville, I ran into a Mrs. _____ who was a high school teacher of mine, now quite psychotic and homeless. In conversation her wide blue Danish eyes rocketed between vivacity and deep sorrow. She was dressed rather stylishly but clothes were worn out, smelling divinely clean. I remember ______ was at Heather's memorial service in May of last year, that she had pressed upon my mother a magnet of the Lady of the Streets, quite insistent that it was a gift and she had not stolen it. Mrs. _____ mentioned prostitution,...